If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

The Bees are Doing It Wrong!

Howdy y'all! First post here, from East Texas.

We started a top-bar hive last spring. We have left them alone for the most part, letting them do their thing. A few weeks ago we decided to check on things and learned that they have built their combs ACROSS the bars. What do we do now?

Re: The Bees are Doing It Wrong!

Wait until Spring 2013, then work to get the combs oriented correctly. Gonna be a job cutting all the combs off the top bars, then fastening them back onto the bars, correctly.

Whenever I'm starting a TBH, (I've grown quite a few TBH nucs), I get the bees to start each top bar by placing it between combs in a Langstroth hive brood nest, then I move them together into an empty nuc box, and finally shake the bees from a populous Langstroth nuc into the top bar nuc. I haven't had a single TBH with misaligned combs, yet.

Re: The Bees are Doing It Wrong!

Check more often? Just kiddin.
Not much you can do at this point. Going to be an uphill battle any way you approach it.
You may have to remove a 15-16" section (depending on the length of your top bars) and remove all of it at once. Them cut away from the bars to attach the comb to the bars the correct way.

Re: The Bees are Doing It Wrong!

Re: The Bees are Doing It Wrong!

If it is really messed up you always have the option of cutting into Langstroth frames and just putting those bees in a Lang. But wait until spring regardless. Someone else on the board had the same thing happen. He only fixed the comb behind the brood nest. Eventually the bees took his queues and fixed the brood nest themselves.

Re: The Bees are Doing It Wrong!

Wait until Spring 2013, then work to get the combs oriented correctly. Gonna be a job cutting all the combs off the top bars, then fastening them back onto the bars, correctly.

Whenever I'm starting a TBH, (I've grown quite a few TBH nucs), I get the bees to start each top bar by placing it between combs in a Langstroth hive brood nest, then I move them together into an empty nuc box, and finally shake the bees from a populous Langstroth nuc into the top bar nuc. I haven't had a single TBH with misaligned combs, yet.

That's really smart! I've had a few people inquire about TBH nucs from me as well. I was just going to reduce on large TBH down to 4-5 nucs, and add queens to the splits. I did this to make splits this spring and let the bees raise their own queens.

To do that, did you have to design you top bars to have the same length as a Lang in order to fit them in the Lang box? Or did you modify your Lang boxes to fit the top bars?

Re: The Bees are Doing It Wrong!

I found from my experience that if you have and can put a straight bar of comb in front of and behind the cross comb they will straighten it out themselves.
In my video I only reattached half of the cross comb because I did not want to take a chance on killing to much brood and within the year when I went back in it was all straight. If I run into it again I will not reattach I will place the straight comb in and once they start they will continue to build staight.

Re: The Bees are Doing It Wrong!

I heard an interesting solution to this problem for a Lang box that was put on with no frames. Could possibly work for TB hive. Said box was inverted and put beneath proper box. B's move up as brood hatches out. Natural tilt of cells inhibits further laying in upside down comb. Perhaps glue TB's together,(Hot glue drops across top and paint stick) and invert in bottom of new box.
Cheers,
Drew

Re: The Bees are Doing It Wrong!

Originally Posted by Maryland Beekeeper

I heard an interesting solution to this problem for a Lang box that was put on with no frames. Could possibly work for TB hive. Said box was inverted and put beneath proper box. B's move up as brood hatches out. Natural tilt of cells inhibits further laying in upside down comb. Perhaps glue TB's together,(Hot glue drops across top and paint stick) and invert in bottom of new box.
Cheers,
Drew

That would be really difficult to do with a Kenyan styleTBH, unless you are looking to get them moved into a TanzanianTBH.
Easier and faster just to cut-out and rehang bad combs, and gets the bees back to work faster.